[SPAM?] Re: AJC - Vaccine safety taken from CDC under new bill

[Guest guest]

Yes! This is great!

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> This is tremendous. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has been a

good friend to the mercury poisoned children and the autism community.

> Kudos to Congressman Weldon and Congresswoman Maloney for all of

their efforts on this critical issue.

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> The firing of the CDC will be long overdue once this bill passes.

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> [sPAM?] Re: AJC - Vaccine safety taken from CDC

under new bill

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http://www.ajc.com/search/content/auto/epaper/editions/thursday/news_448c7502561\

b01b000f9.html

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> Vaccine safety taken from CDC under new bill

> Alison Young - Staff

> Thursday, July 27, 2006

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> Responsibility for vaccine safety would be taken away from the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under a bill introduced

Wednesday in Congress, the latest salvo in the battle between parents

of autistic children and the Atlanta-based agency.

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> The Vaccine Safety and Public Confidence Assurance Act of 2006

would create a new federal agency separate from the CDC. The bill

seeks to remove what its backers contend is a dangerous conflict of

interest in having the CDC promote widespread vaccination and at the

same time watchdog safety issues that might decrease vaccination rates.

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> The CDC has been criticized by parents of children with autism and

other developmental disorders who believe old-style vaccines

containing the mercury-based preservative thimerosal caused or

contributed to their health problems. These advocates have accused the

CDC of cover-ups and scientific manipulations.

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> CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said the agency couldn't comment on the

pending legislation. But he said CDC takes vaccine safety seriously

and more than a year ago created an Immunization Safety Office ---

separate from the agency's vaccine promotion activities --- to address

concerns about conflicts of interest.

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> The bill was introduced by Reps. Dave Weldon (R-Fla.) and Carolyn

Maloney (D-N.Y.). It would create a new Agency for Vaccine Safety

Evaluation, which like CDC, would be a part of the Department of

Health and Human Services.

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> Among other things, the measure calls for increased research into

possible long-term complications from vaccinations and a tightening of

personnel conflict of interest rules. No member of the new safety

agency's senior management could have worked for CDC in the previous

five years.

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> " In my opinion, safety studies were never sufficiently done on

many of these vaccines, " Weldon, a medical doctor, said in an

interview. " They certainly were not done on the vaccine additive

thimerosal. "

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> He noted that members of the Senate are examining drug safety

reforms at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and said that vaccine

safety deserves as much scrutiny.

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> The CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical

groups say there is no evidence to support a connection between autism

and thimerosal and they point to a widely publicized 2004 report by an

expert panel of the Institute of Medicine. Critics counter that the

lack of evidence is caused by inadequate research.

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> Thimerosal has been removed from or reduced to trace amounts in

all vaccines routinely recommended for children 6 and younger, with

the exception of flu shots, according to the CDC. Of 100 million flu

vaccine doses being manufactured for the 2006-2007 flu season, only

about 8.5 million will be thimerosal-free.

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> In the past year, questions about CDC's credibility on vaccine

safety issues have been raised by a growing and increasingly

high-profile group of members of Congress. Weldon said that while the

bill is unlikely to pass this year, he's introduced it now to begin

gaining support.

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